Minor Requirements (7 courses)

The Anthropology minor requires students to complete 7 courses. At least five of these courses must be upper division, and at least four should be taken at UC San Diego. All courses applied toward the minor must be taken for a letter grade of C– or better. An exception is made for one independent study course (199) or one directed group study course (198), which must be taken on a Pass/Not Pass (P/NP) basis.

Students must declare an Anthropology concentration:

Anthropological Archaeology

The study of human history and prehistory through excavation of sites and analysis of artifacts and other physical remains.

Biological Anthropology

The study of the physical developmentof the human species in the context of other primates.

Sociocultural Anthropology

The study of cultural variation among humans embedded in its historical and social context

Core Courses (3 courses)

Three courses must be completed from one of the following concentrations:

Overlaps:Please note, your degree audit will automatically overlap two upper division courses between your major and minor if relevant. If those are not the courses you would like overlapped, please send us a message in the VAC and we can change or delete the overlaps. You are not required to overlap any courses.

Anthropological Archaeology The undergraduate program in anthropological archaeology incorporates comparative introductory courses; more advanced theoretical and topical courses in our areas of expertise, field schools in Jordan and Peru, and archaeologically oriented study abroad programs in Egypt, Mexico, and Central America. Undergraduate students also may gain research experience working in our laboratories or at the Museum of Man.

Biological AnthropologyBiological Anthropology at UC San Diego addresses the evolution of the culture-bearing capacity in humans and closely related species from a strongly comparative perspective. Humans, today, are a super-dominant species. How we got this way fires up public and scientific imaginations; yet while there are many theories and speculations about our origins none has yet provided a full explanation of our evolutionary history. The difficulties go beyond the mere facts to profound philosophical issues including ones extremely relevant to the modern human predicament.

We believe that the answers can come only from the type of intra-, inter-, and cross-disciplinary collaborations we represent. We aim to understand the origins, organization complexity and socioecology of nonhuman primate societies. We explore the relationship between socioecology and the neural substrates of complex behavior in primates. We study and reconstruct subsistence strategies of humans and nonhuman primates within varied environments and social systems. We consider the constraints or consequences of food resources (energy availability) on energy expenditure and neural organization.

We are involved in applying our scientific knowledge to the conservation of primate species and habitats. We emphasize bioarchaeology in reconstructing prehistoric human diet, ecology, and migration patterns. We bridge with neurosciences and cognitive science in investigating the neural substrates of cognition in humans.

Sociocultural AnthropologyThe faculty and students in sociocultural anthropology at UC San Diego share a basic concern with the shaping and reshaping of human life. We examine the forces and structures that regulate life as well as the ways that groups of people instantiate, modify and occasionally overturn such powerful geographical and historical tendencies and logics. Among the concerns reflected in our teaching and research are: colonial and imperial relations; capitalist restructuring and state transformation; rivalries around definitions of progress and development; shifts in paradigms of knowledge production as well as ethical and aesthetic benchmarks; struggles over how to mark and record competing histories, memories and desires, and the uneven patterning of life around such distinctions as age, ethnicity, citizenship, gender, nationalism, race, religion, and sexuality.